Since the Ming army sent troops from Yiwu five days ago, it was soon stationed in the area of Yiting Town. After arriving in Yiting Town, Chen Wen did not rush to Fucheng.

The Ming army has certain disadvantages in cavalry and naval divisions, and the only thing that can get some help in geography is the direction of the Dongyang River, so he does not plan to be too anxious to go deep into the Qing army's occupied area, but to act as the backing of the Ming cavalry that has been stationed here before, steadily expel the scouts of the Qing army, and advance the battle line in the direction of Fucheng little by little.

In the previous trial with the Qing army scouts, although the Ming cavalry was superior in numbers, most of them were slightly inferior in riding skills, so they could only repeatedly compete with the Qing army for control of the surrounding area of Yiting Town. Since Chen Wen led the main force to arrive, relying on the cooperation of infantry and cavalry, the Ming army finally succeeded in expelling the Qing army.

However, the good times did not last long, and after learning that the Ming army had set off from Yiwu, the Qing army quickly gathered men and horses, and with the assistance of the people requisitioned from Fucheng, Lanxi, Tangxi and other places, they soon crossed Tangya Town and entered Xiaoshun Town west of Yiting Town.

Xiaoshun Town and Yiting Town were only twenty or thirty miles apart, and the Qing army camped in the east of the town after arriving one after another, so relying on Xiaoshun Town in the west and Goutou Mountain in the south, more scouts were sent in the direction of Yiting Town to observe and harass.

Although in the first half of this year, Chen Guobao led part of the Pinggang Ming Army and the remnants of the left and right battalions of the Dalanshan Ming Army to join and return, coupled with Yang Kai's inspiration when attacking Dongyang County, and Yu Guowang sent his only dozens of cavalry before departure, Chen Wen, who originally commanded only dozens of cavalry, also had a cavalry team of nearly 400 people.

It's just that most of these cavalry have a certain gap with the cavalry in the Qing army in terms of riding skills, martial arts and combat experience, so in the end, they can only use infantry and cavalry to fight together to expel the cavalry of the Qing army. However, after the main force of the Qing army entered Xiaoshun Town, as the number that was still dominant was also overtaken by the Qing army, the cavalry of the Ming army had to move closer to the main force of the Ming army in Yiting Town, and shrink the defense line to avoid greater casualties.

But with the contraction of the line of defense. The Ming army relied on scouts to obtain less and less information, and learned that the main force of the Qing army had arrived in Xiaoshun Town one after another, and Chen Wen, who did not have much food and grass, did not intend to continue to wait, and after convening the accompanying generals for a military discussion, it was convenient to send troops from the military camp outside Yiting Town early this morning and advance in the direction of Xiaoshun Town.

At this time, it was the sixth day of the 11th month of the fifth year of the Yongli calendar. It has been a full year since the first battle of the Nantang Battalion won the battle behind the Siming Mountain Palace. It's just that there was a civilian official supervising the army before, and Chen Wen couldn't estimate Wang Jiang's tolerance, so the commemoration of the "Memorial Day of the Battle of Siming Mountain Palace" that he originally planned could only be temporarily stopped.

This time, since the Qing army brigade arrived in Xiaoshun Town at this moment, Chen Wen naturally did not plan to miss this day that would help boost morale. When he learned yesterday that the Qing army had completed its assembly in Xiaoshun Town the day before yesterday and began to rest before the war, he did not hesitate to decide to set off from Yiting Town today to fight a decisive battle with the Qing army.

On the sixth day of November, this day has a good lip service for the Ming army. And learned the news that the Ming army set off from Yiting Town early in the morning. As the commander of the encirclement and suppression of the Qing army, Ma Jinbao also came up with another story to motivate the morale of the corporal when he gathered the generals for a military discussion.

"Ben Shuai has been in Jinhua for a while, and he still knows a little about some of the stories here......

This time, the Qing army's southern front troops alone exceeded 7,000 soldiers, such an order of magnitude, plus the accompanying battalion of the Governor Battalion, the Fubiao battalion also exerted pressure on the northern front, and Chen Jin should have coordinated the various departments as the commander.

However, at present, the Zhoushan war has just ended, and the finishing work is not yet finished. Although the main force of the Zhoushan Ming Army fled the scope of Zhoushan, it was stationed in Wenzhou Sanpan, the station where Hou Zhou Hezhi had been pacified. The Qing army, which continued to pursue and kill, had been dispatched. But taking care of the two aspects of the war at the same time, Chen Jin seems to be a little lacking.

Considering the prestige of Lu Jianguo in Zhejiang, and the fierceness of the great Lan thief Chen Wen, Chen Jin decided to stay in Quzhou to facilitate the coordination of the Qing army on both sides. Only the work of commanding in battle was handed over to the "fortune boy who attracted wealth and treasure" to do. and sent Zhang Guoxun, the deputy general of the Central Army of the Supervision Battalion, to assist, which can be regarded as giving Ma Jinbao a chance to make meritorious contributions.

At the end of the eighth year of Chongde, a Zhusheng called Xudu in Dongyang County rebelled, and by the beginning of the second year, more than 100,000 people had gathered, and then marched to the city. When Xu Du's army arrived in Xiaoshun Town. The Ming army had completed the initial assembly, and soon moved the troops of Xudu, only because of the excessive strength of Xudu gradually retreated to Fucheng, and during this period, reinforcements from all over the country also arrived in Fucheng. He defeated him in a battle under the city and put down the chaos. ”

"At present, there are only a few thousand people under the command of Chen Wen, a big blue thief, and the places he occupies are only two counties of Yiwu and Dongyang, which are far from Naxu. The officers and soldiers of our Zhejiang Green Battalion are twice as large as the enemy, and there are more Fubiao and Shaoxing Green Battalions to contain them on the northern front. At that time, Dongyang and Yiwu counties, the marshal and the rank will be shared. ”

At this moment, the story of the Xudu Rebellion told by Ma Jinbao quickly aroused the response of the Qing army generals, especially the last sentence "At that time, the two counties of Dongyang and Yiwu will be the same as the commander." The words inspired the **** of the Qing army generals to slaughter and loot.

In the past few days, all the reinforcements who came here have received a lot of goods from Ma Jinbao, plus the income from looting the local people in Jinhua, as well as the harvest during this march, it can be said that they have made a lot of money. Since Ma Jinbao had already put down his words, after defeating the Ming army, he naturally wanted to slaughter the city to punish the local gentry and common people who were thieves, and to deter potential rebels.

Another large amount of goods is about to be credited to the account, and the morale of the Qing generals is naturally greatly boosted, and what stands in front of them is only the Ming army, which is stronger than half of the Qing army on the southern front, and it is said that most of them are new soldiers. In addition to the Ming army generals led by him, he heard that he was a little brave, but he might not have the strength to fight in front of the superior Qing army.

There are still two months to go before the New Year, and the Ming army is defeated at this moment, and after the aftermath is completed, it will be able to catch up with the return to the station for a fat year. In the scouts, the news came that the Ming army had set off, and the Qing army also hurriedly mobilized his subordinates to send troops to meet the battle, striving to defeat the Ming army in a battle.

………………

At the same time, with high morale and the assistance of the people, Chen Wen led the Ming army to march towards Xiaoshun Town at a very fast speed.

At this moment, it is already noon, and the journey is nearly halfway, if there is no accident, you can arrive at Xiaoshun Town in the evening. In Chen Wen's view, the Qing army, which had an advantage in strength, was bound to send troops to meet the battle, so as to shorten the distance from Yiwu County, so that they could complete the follow-up clean-up work after defeating the Ming army.

However, due to the superiority of the number and quality of the cavalry of the Qing army, the scouts of the Ming army could not be disseminated, and they could only speculate on the movements of the Qing army through sporadic information. This feeling of blindness made Chen Wen feel very uncomfortable, but fortunately, the terrain was relatively flat, and there was almost no terrain that could be used to set up an ambush, which also saved Chen Wen from a trace of unnecessary worries.

After resting for a while, Chen Wen led his army to continue to advance towards Xiaoshun Town.

This time, Chen Wen dispatched two battalions, the Nantang Battalion and the Yiwu Battalion, as well as some reserve troops. Among them, the Nantang battalion has more than 2,000 troops, while the Yiwu battalion is only a new battalion composed of infantry teams of four bureaus, and the strength is only more than 1,600 people. Combined with the 400 infantry that existed as reserves and less than 200 bird-gunners sponsored by Yu Guowang, the strength of the Ming army also exceeded 4,000.

However, on the contrary, according to the news from the scouts, the Qing army dispatched one battalion each of the three associations of Quzhou, Yanzhou, and Chuzhou, as well as more than half of the remnants of Ma Jinbao's standard battalion in Jinhua Town, and more than 3,000 soldiers from the standard battalion of the governor of Zhejiang and Fujian, which should be between 6,500 and 7,000 in total. The Qing army, including the 200 green battalion soldiers who guarded the road in Jinqu, stayed in Fucheng and the counties in the areas occupied by the Qing army to make sure that everything was safe.

Four thousand against seven thousand, the Ming army was at an absolute disadvantage in terms of strength. However, Chen Wen has long been accustomed to this, and for more than a year, it seems that he has only had the experience of having a superior force when he besieged Tiantai County with Yu Guowang, and almost every other battle has to face the Qing army that is in a superior position.

And the current situation does not allow Chen Wen to draw too many troops to participate in the operation on the southern front, and the disadvantage of not having strategic depth is undoubtedly revealed here, so he has no choice but to act like this.

The march continued, and the main force of the Ming army marched at a high speed, but because the cavalry was inferior in terms of quantity and quality, Chen Wen had to prohibit the scouts from engaging the Qing army in order to reduce unnecessary casualties. In this way, the Ming army could only use the power of the main force to barely maintain a certain range of intelligence collection and covering, so that the main force could wear armor before the battle.

It's just that as the Qing army marched, the scout confrontation between the two sides became more and more intensive. Sensing that the main force of the Qing army was not far away, Chen Wen immediately ordered the whole army to stop and begin to make preparations before the battle.

Arrays, armor, inspection of weapons, tinder boxes, loading of bird guns and artillery, digging trenches and bunkers for artillery positions......

When the Ming army began to carry out the last wave of morale boost, the main force of the Qing army also appeared in Chen Wen's sight. As the scouts continued to send news, Chen Wen analyzed the deployment of the Qing army through the location of the flags, but when he sorted out the clues, he still couldn't help frowning.

"Ma Jinbao, do you believe so much that the Supervising Battalion can crush my new battalion before the Nantang Battalion defeats you?" (To be continued.) )